Aaron Reed

Aaron grew up in Rockport, Texas, attended the University of Dallas, served in the U.S. Army, and worked for two decades for several state and federal agencies, including the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

At the age of 41 (like Ishmael, and for many of the same reasons) Aaron quietly took to sea. He was one of the first persons to be certified as a wildlife guide in Texas and operated eco-tours and birding and fishing charters in deep South Texas before succumbing to the siren call of industry (and the need to feed the family) and shipping out as an offshore supply vessel captain in the Gulf of Mexico. Today he spends half of each year on a harbor tug, docking and sailing ships at Harbor Island, Ingleside, and Corpus Christi.

The other six months, you’ll find him at home in Georgetown, just north of the Lone Star State’s capital, fishing Central Texas streams with some of the most interesting people in the world, among whom he counts his three sons.

Aaron is a former board member of the Angler Action Foundation (formerly the Snook Foundation), where he was deeply involved in developing the iAngler app. He co-founded and currently serves as a director of the Texas Streams Coalition.

Aaron’s first book, Fly Fishing Austin and Central Texas, will be published May 1, 2020, by Imbrifex Books.

As a newspaper reporter and magazine writer, he as won a number of awards for outdoor, conservation, and military writing. His stories and photos have appeared in Southwest Fly Fishing, This is Fly, Kayak Angler, Texas Outdoors Journal, Texas Sporting Journal, Texas Fish & Game, Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine, Lone Star Outdoor News, Austin American-Statesman, Austin Business Journal, the Taylor Press, Soldiers magazine, Leatherneck magazine, Liguorian magazine, The Washington Times, and elsewhere.